Mura Masa

The story of Mura Masa is one to remind people that there's still room for optimism about the “internet generation”. Only just out of his teens, Alex Crossan has shown how someone with an appetite for knowledge, even if their upbringing has been isolated, can make full use of having the world at their fingertips without getting overwhelmed by “too much information”. Not only that, but again and again he's proving that it's possible parlay the myriad of potential influences that are available to anyone with a broadband connection into something unique, future-facing and accidentally popular. Like, over 200 million streams popular.

Now, he's gone a step further and turned all that ability and promise into a playful, ambitious and entirely ‘Mura Masa’ debut album. It's a record that, in his words, captures “the confusion and chaos of being 20 and living in London for the first time”. An album that features an extraordinarily diverse mix of guests, ranging from Damon Albarn and Christine & The Queens to A$AP Rocky, Desiigner, Jamie Lidell, A.K Paul, and affiliates of Alex’s own Anchor Point family (like Nao, Bonzai and Tom Tripp). In and amongst all that, you’re as likely to find Prince-style wired funk sitting next to trap as you are tropical-inflected house and acoustic balladry. Undaunted by the calibre of talent he's found himself working with or the pressure of expectations, Mura Masa has produced an album of coherence, variety and vitality: even his artwork rejects the idea of running to the page, or living in a box.